ESPN’s Bomani Jones Slams Deion Sanders For Using An HBCU To Bolster His Own Career: ‘He Sold a Dream and Then Walked Out’

ESPN host Bomani Jones slammed the new University of Colorado Boulder’s head football coach Deion Sanders for using Jackson State to boost his coaching career.

Sanders left Jackson State on Saturday to become the new head coach at Colorado, and he was introduced as their head coach on Sunday afternoon. Sanders immediately told his new players to look at the transfer portal because he would bring his own “luggage.”

Jones — a longtime ESPN personality who also currently hosts Game Theory for HBO — appeared on Tuesday’s edition of CNN This Morning and said he did not blame Sanders for taking job in Colorado, given the dramatically increased pay.

“I don’t judge him for taking the job at Colorado,” Jones said. “They probably increased his salary by 15 times. I totally get that; it all makes sense.”

Jones claimed Sanders did what most college coaches do — try to win over recruits with long-term plans, while really only thinking about the current season.

“What he did was something college coaches do all the time,” Jones added. “You have to sell people four-year, ten-year plans when your plan is one year at a time. That’s really the only way you can pull that off. So he came in and sold a long-term vision for what was going on at Jackson State, but his goals and ambitions were always to be a power-five head coach.”

Jones accused Sanders of using Jackson State, a Historically Black College or University (HBCU), to strengthen his coaching career.

“My take has always been, he went to Jackson State primarily because he wanted to be a head coach but didn’t want to ever be someone’s assistant coach,” Jones continued. “So he had to find somebody that would give him a job, make him a head coach, and so he can have that on his resume, and then he can take that to try and get the job that he wanted.”

“Jackson State was the place that could do it,” Jones said. “And he did a lot of good work at Jackson State.”

Jones believed Sanders did it for himself and only looked for what benefited him the most.

“It was what it always is; he did it for Deion,” Jones added. “And that’s fine if you don’t tell us you’re trying doing this for somebody else.”

Jones received pushback from co-host Kaitlan Collins — who argued Sanders did bring attention to HBCU football programs, and noted his 27-5 record in three seasons at Jackson State. She also brought up the financial differences between an HBCU program and a program like Colorado, and Jones agreed the money was unquestionably a factor.

“I think the magnitude of financial disparity between HBCUs and other FCS schools, the smaller division in division one, is bigger than people realize,” Jones added. “There’s room to criticize him for the way he has left, for the fact his initial rhetoric is not in line with his ultimate decision.”

“What would you have the man do?” co-host Don Lemon asked.

“I wouldn’t have come in the first place and said that ‘God sent me here to fix HBCUs,’ and God decided that in the middle of it, you were supposed to leave?” Jones said.

He added, “He sold a dream and then walked out on the dream. People have the right to be critical of that.”

Jones said that he would have taken the job at Colorado as well; his criticism was based more on the premise that Sanders sold Jackson State on a larger mission that turned out to be hype.

“This is not in line with what he told us for all these years,” Jones added.

Watch above via CNN.